Dominating the courtyard of
the homestead of Abdul Hossain is a large and ostentatious shrine. Decorated
with Arabic designs and words, and surrounded by flags, the shrine (mazaar) is
similar to hundreds of similarly venerated graves scattered over the landscape
of rural Sylhet, in north-east Bangladesh. It proclaims for all to see that the
late Abdul Hossain is a pir. It is a social recognition of his spiritual power;
by giving offerings and directing prayers towards it, believers can gain the
help of an intermediary with privileged access to God. The presence of a pir in
their lineage is thought to signify great religious purity amongst family
members. As part of a pir's lineage, they are inherently more holy than others.
Indeed men in subsequent generations will inherit their ancestor's holiness,
and, if they study and lead pure lives they may themselves become pirs,
receiving the devotion, submission and offerings of disciples who come in search
of guidance and help.

All this is familiar in
South Asia, where pirs (often described as Sufi saints [Ewing 1980:][1] are key figures in
local Islam. Pirs, it is argued, enabled 'orthodox' Sunni faith to merge with
indigenous culture when it was first introduced to the region, thus ensuring its
acceptance amongst the masses (Cashin 1988; Haq 1975; Roy 1982; Saiyed 1989).
Whilst the notion of 'syncretic' Islam is highly problematic, it rightly
indicates the embeddedness of the pir in South Asia: in Bengal, pirs and their
shrines are as old as Islam. Abdul Hossain's case is, however, distinctly
contemporary. Unlike most pirs, he had no followers during his lifetime, and
claims that he is a pir have only been made some years after his death. His cult
is also exclusively confined to members of his immediate patrilineage. Indeed,
their assertions that they are now part of a pir lineage, and as such are more
inherently holy than the hoi polloi, are generally scoffed at by more distant
relatives and neighbours. The legitimacy of a pir is always of course a social
construct (Ewing 1980). But a particular interest in the construction of Abdul
Hossain's pir-hood is its relationship to change in his family's economic status
and their subsequent attempts to transform their own religious
status.

Like
many other local shrines, the mazaar of Abdul Hossain is partly a result of
overseas migration. More than the donations of devoted disciples, it was founded
by remittances sent by family members in Britain. The shrine is a useful
entrance to the two main themes of this paper: the spiritual transformations and
miracles of pirs; and the economic opportunities, and subsequent economic
transformations of migration. Both types of transformation are interrelated; but
rather than migration un-lineally affecting religious beliefs and behaviour, the
relationship is more circular. Originally, I suggest, migrants were part of the
culture of miracles. The economic transformations resulting from migration have
however led to a gradual rejection of charismatic pirs. But rather than moving
away from their cults to complete monotheism, change has come internally; the
cults have themselves been transformed. The legitimacy of this new breed of pirs
no longer rests upon charisma and miracles, but instead upon scriptualism and
notions of 'orthodoxy'. Abdul Hossain's family, for example, asserts that his
power is derived from his knowledge of Quranic texts and Islamic learning.
Unlike the followers of most pirs, they do not claim him to be the agent of
miracles and today, activities at his urs (death anniversary) are very different
from those of most pir cults. There is no singing, ecstatic dancing or dhikir
(repetition), but instead recitation of the Quran and namaz (formal prayer).
Like so many of their neighbours, they are also migrants.

Tiny and kin-based as it
is, the cult is thus part of far wider processes in Sylhet, and intimately tied
to sweeping changes that have come to the region in recent decades. These have
been largely engendered by the widespread migration of many Sylhetis abroad,
primarily to Britain, but also to the Middle East, USA and Western Europe. This
and the consequent enrichment and leaps in social status of migrant families, is
closely associated with growing Islamic 'purism' in the area (and by this I mean
the increasing influence of Quranic text reference of the Shar'iat and stress on
adab or correct procedures). These practices, and the boundary between what is
and is not acceptable are the subjects of continual negotiation between
different groups.

Pirs, and the continually
disputed criteria for their legitimacy, straddle this boundary. Although some of
the most orthodox disclaim any allegiance to pirs, others have redefined their
pirs as Sunni holy men of the highest scriptural tradition, separating
themselves from the cults of charisma and miracles which are increasingly left
to the poor and powerless. There is therefore a growing polarisation between
purist activities and belief and what is increasingly being interpreted by the
economically and politically powerful as 'incorrect' religious
behaviour.

A Culture of Miracles; Bengali
Pirs

No
comprehensive description of Bengali Islam is possible without reference to pirs
(Roy 1982), although at times the category covers such a broad range of
characters that there is danger of it becoming meaningless. In general it is
associated with Sufism (Ewing 1980; Lewis 1985; Nanda and Talib 1989), but this
too covers a whole spectrum of beliefs and categories (Baldick 1989; Cashin
1988; Wilson 1983).

In Sylhet pirs are
sometimes saints of the highest order such as Shah Jafal (who, it is generally
agreed, introduced Islam to Sylhet), or the 360 disciples who came with him and
who have acquired pir status (Roy 1982). The term may also be used for various
figures shared with local Hindus such as Kwaz, the 'saint' of fishermen
(Blanchet 1984; Saiyed 1989), or simply for ordinary mullahs (clergy) when the
speaker wishes to denote particular respect. In the cults of living pirs,
devotees express extreme deference and subservience (Nanda and Talib
1989).

The pir
is believed to possess special spiritual power, which allows him to communicate
with God, and to be a vehicle for miracles. Only through his guidance, it is
believed, can God be found. Many followers of pir cults in rural Sylhet speak of
their need for a guide to teach them holy ways and act as an intermediary with
God. Others may visit the pir at times of particular need: sickness, economic
crisis, marital problems, and so on, bringing material offerings (shinni) such
as sacrificial meat. The pir usually responds to requests for help with tapiz
(amulets), foo (blowing on supplicant), or in some cases the utterance of a
mantra (blessing with holy power). How effective these are depends on how
powerful the pir is thought to be, or how 'hot'. The hotter a pir, the more
transformative power he is thought to have.[2]

In Talukpur, the migrant village
where I worked, not everybody follows a living pir. Whilst all villagers told me
the greatest pir is Shah Jalal, only a small proportion claimed to have a living
pir. Most of those who did belonged to the poorest families, which have not
enjoyed the benefits of migration. These families cited a holy man in Eeshabpur
a nearby village as their pir. Generally they had been introduced through kin,
or had inherited cult membership from their parents which they would pass on to
their own children. Others cited different pirs, usually living locally. Whilst
many did not visit their pir, regularly, all told me they would visit in times
of need.

The
following are statements made by the villagers who today tend to be the poorest
and most marginalised, about their pir. People carry him from here to there on
their heads. They bring a throne and carry him on it. What this man says has
effect...

“The
pir gives directions on how to lead my life. He shows me a straight path. I
serve him and he tells me to fast pray and in what way to lead my life. If I do
the things which my guru orders then I will go straight to Heaven. I sit by the
pir and he tells me how to order my life...”

The power of a pir is
thought to increase at death (Troll 1989). Their graves are venerated as
shrines, whilst disciples or male next of kin usually inherit the saintly
mantle. Like the caliph, the line of descent from the Prophet the pir creates a
holy line, in which descendants are closer than others to Allah. Many Sylheti
cults are based around shrines of the dead. Soil and water from these are
believed to contain mortaba (spiritual power) and effect cures in the sick. On
the anniversary of the pir's death an urs is held. This usually involves singing
into the night, drumming, and ecstatic dancing. Although I was never able to
attend, the few villagers prepared to enlighten me whispered that ganja
(marijuana) and prostitution were sometimes present at urs. The legitimacy of
pirs is generally based upon evidence that they are the vehicles of miracles
seen as proof of their special relationship with God.

These miracles invariably
involve the transcendence of 'natural' law and reversal of apparent realities.
These events were recounted by the followers of a local pir:

He did not go [visiting] by
boat, but wearing shoes, walking over the water. This is the proof of his
saintliness; then people believed he was a saint, that he had strength, and they
called him pir...[3]

Some people were saying our pir was
a cheat. One day they decided to prove whether he was pir or a fake. They hid
some copper in the house where he was staying, then they closed the doors and
set fire to it. Later, they found that those coins had melted but the pir had
been not touched.

A child lay dead, her
funeral shroud around her. The pir appeared and looked into her face and
suddenly she was alive. Then he turned himself into a tiger, and ran off into
the jungle.

Pirs, then, can transform
their bodies and transcend elements which defeat normal men and women. They
usually have healing powers and people who are not followers of a specific cult
often visit when sick. If he is alive they will receive the pir’s foo and
amulets, if dead they will take soil from his mazaar. Because he has a special
relationship with God he may also be able to influence events in a follower's
life and for this reason pirs are often visited in times of crisis. An amulet or
blessing may bring back an errant husband make a woman fertile or cure a man of
sickness. Specialist pirs also exist who can find stolen property or detect
thieves. Again, these pirs are often only visited in times of pressing need.
Through devotion to a pir, then, followers are given a chance of escaping a
state of affairs which seems inevitable.

This transformative ability
extends to economic affairs. In the lines of a devotional song popular amongst
labourers: 'My guru is a precious thing. He makes iron into pure gold'. Indeed
whilst the pir’s power is spiritual, and may be strengthened by his own
asceticism, he may have the power to bring wealth to his followers. Poverty
brings one closer to God, followers of pirs assert; but in turn, closeness to
God can bring prosperity. Local myths often stress the economic transformations
brought about by pirs. In one, the family of a labourer who stumbled upon the
relics of a dead pir’s grave was rewarded with great prosperity when they built
a mazaar on the site and venerated it as a holy place. A similar link between
holiness and wealth is echoed in many devotional Sufi songs:

Oh Great Guru, nobody returns from your court
empty-handed:Allah
gave his riches to Roussel; Allah disappeared; Khaza received Allah's wealth
and stayed in Ajmir;Khaza, everyone goes to your
shrine:If somebody
wants something,he
will give from his unlimited treasures.[4]

It is this which brings me to
migration which, too, has led to economic transformation. I suggest later that
overseas migration from Sylhet was originally informed by beliefs in the
miraculous. But while the earliest migrants were initially part of the culture
of the pirs and their miracles, many now follow a different religious path.
Their transformation has been so radical that they now reject the charismatic
pir, changing him into something more fitting to their new social and religious
status.

Miraculous Transformation and Migration in
Sylhet

As
Eickelman and Piscatori point out (1990: 259), the relationship between
migration and religious change has been little examined by anthropologists. With
a few exceptions, studies of labour migration are mainly located under the broad
rubric of political economy concentrating upon economic and political change but
neglecting the ideological concomitants of such change. Those studies which do
exist tend to focus entirely upon how religious belief and behaviour are
affected by migration rather than examining the interrelationship of economic
change and ideology as a two-way process. In Sylhet, however, whilst labour
migration is at one level controlled by external economic forces it is itself
influenced by ideologies of transformation central to local Islamic belief. In
turn, migration and economic prosperity have contributed to religious change and
especially to a rejection of belief in miraculous transformation.

There are interesting
similarities between the miracles of the pirs and migration. Both involve
transformation on many levels. Just as the pir cited earlier can 'turn iron into
pure gold', migration has enabled many families to reinvent themselves as high
status landowners. Like the miracles of the pirs, travel involves a crossing,
and redefinition of boundaries (Eickelman and Piscatori 1990: 5). More
significantly, the spirit with which migration takes place often involves belief
in the possibility of miracles, of being able to turn the world around and be
transformed. As we shall see, in both instances, reality is not necessarily
fixed; the given order of affairs can be changed.

Migration to Britain from
Bangladesh is a peculiarly Sylheti phenomenon. Although South Asians have always
migrated overseas (Clarke 1990), and migrants to the Middle East come from all
over Bangladesh (Islam et al. 1987), migration to the UK has been mainly
monopolised by Sylhetis who, from the nineteenth century onwards were employed
by British ship companies and travelled the world as crew (Adams 1987; Eade
1986). Their success is partly explained by the fortuitous success of a number
of Sylheti sarengs (foremen, who controlled employment), who understandably
favoured their kinsmen and fellow countrymen in recruitment. Although work on
the ships was punishing, by village standards profits were considerable: a
year's work in a ship's engine rooms might enable a man to buy land or build a
new house. Anyway, many seamen did not confine themselves to the seas, jumping
ship once they had docked, and seeking their fortune on dry land. Most of those
who smuggled themselves ashore did so in London. A small but steadily increasing
population of Sylhetis was established in Britain by the early 1950s (Adams
1987, Peach 1990).

Over the 1950s, the numbers
increased dramatically. The post-war British economy needed cheap and plentiful
labour, much of which was recruited from South Asia. It was a case par
excellence of chain migration: just as ship workers helped their kin and find
work, so British-based Sylhetis now helped each other to migrate. By the late
1960s, however, the situation had changed. British industry had declined, and
immigrant labour was no longer in demand. New laws, radically curtailing
entrance to Britain, were introduced. Alarmed by the increasing insecurity of
their situations, most migrants responded by applying for British passports and
sending for their wives and children (Ballard 1990: 219-47). At the same time,
many Sylhetis switched from redundancy-prone factory work to the business of
restaurants, capitalising on a growing British appetite for curry. Since the
early days when single men travelled to the West and returned every couple of
years to their villages, things have greatly changed. Children are born and bred
British, and the notion held by many migrants in the 1960s and 1970s that their
stay in Britain was strictly temporary, and only to earn money, has increasingly
faded (Carey and Shukur 1985; Eade 1990).

Meanwhile in Sylhet, a new
form of labour migration had appeared by the 1970s, with the increasing
importance to the Bangladesh economy of labour migration to the Middle East
(Hossain 1985; Islam et al. 1987). Legally migrants can only enter these
countries with official work contracts, which are sold by brokers for
considerable sums. In Sylhet, many households without members in Britain have
quickly taken advantage of this new opportunity, obtaining contracts for their
young men and hoping for similar economic rewards. Other migrants enter
illegally. These men face great insecurity. Working casually, often in the
construction industry, or as street vendors, they have no legal rights and, if
caught, face immediate deportation (Owens 1985). Although some have grown rich
from Middle Eastern earnings, many do not recoup the initial capital
expenditure. Others are cheated by brokers who take their money, but never
deliver the promised contracts. In spite of such experiences, however, migration
is perceived as the main economic opportunity available, and many households
send their sons abroad more than once.

Just as the nature of
migration has changed, so have the migrant villages (Gardner 1990, 1991). Those
with high levels of overseas migration are startlingly distinct. Rather than the
mud and thatch huts typical of Bangladesh, these villages are filled with stone
houses, sometimes two or even three stories high. The migrant villages seem
prosperous, replete with material evidence of their overseas success and a far
cry from the impoverishment of much of rural Bangladesh. Similar
remittance-induced 'booms' have been noted elsewhere in Asia (Ballard 1983;
Kessinger 1979; Watson 1975).

In Sylhet, most migrant
families have indeed enjoyed a success story of sorts. The original migrants,
whilst not usually destitute, were by no means the wealthiest of their villages.
Some were even landless, helped in their migration by the patronage and loans of
better-off kin or neighbours. Many were originally small landowners with just
enough capital to pay for the initial costs of migration. These men returned
home rich, investing their earnings in land, the vital commodity upon which the
well-being and position of all households in rural Bangladesh depends. Most
became moderate, or very large, landowners (Gardner 1990). And so by the 1970s,
when men who had been working in Britain had accumulated enough money to convert
themselves form small owner-cultivators or sharecroppers to large landowners,
people began to appreciate that fortune could be made abroad. Given these leaps
in fortune, foreign countries have increasingly been viewed as a source of great
bounty, the means of economic transformation. In the eyes of those who have
never been abroad, migration is something of a miracle:

Now if I go to London I'll
get big and strong... Our poverty will be over.(A landless
sharecropper).

A poor man can get rich -
but only by going abroad.(A sharecropper).

This economic miracle is
very real. In Talukpur, land owning is strongly correlated with migration to
Britain and the Middle East. Of the seventy households, only twenty-six are not
involved in migration; over half have family members in Britain, and the rest
are in the Middle East. Of the twenty-five landless households, only one has
experienced migration to the West, whereas of the twenty-seven richest
land-owning households, i.e. those with over six acres, only one has no migrant
members. These patterns have radically changed since the 1950s. Most households
with British migrants were originally small to medium landowners, and some were
landless. Within a few decades, their economic positions have been
transformed.

Correspondingly, those
without access to foreign wages have found it increasingly difficult to compete
in the struggle for local resources. During the period of most intense migration
in the 1960s, when migrants struggled to buy as many fields as possible, local
prices shot up. To buy fields today, foreign income is crucial. Other price
rises - in labour, basic commodities and agricultural technology - have also
contributed, making it increasingly hard for a small plot without capital behind
it to be viable. The processes of land loss are as common in Sylhet as elsewhere
in the country (Hartman and Boyce 1983; Jansen 1987). But in migrant areas, high
prices offered to owners may have been a further incentive to sell, and once
landless they had little chance of climbing back on to the land-owning ladder.
In sum, there has been increasing polarisation between the migrants and the
non-migrants.

Migration overseas has thus
become something which non-migrants dream of, and aspire to. Families without
migrants constantly seek ways to gain access to the opportunities which they
perceive migration to offer, however low their chances might seem to the
dispassionate outsider. Many households sell their few fields to fund a trip to
'Saudi', and even if cheated once will take further loans to try again. In
Talukpur several households have lost all their land through their desperate
attempts to join the category of 'migrant': a common fate in Sylhet.

Whilst the economic
transformation brought about by migration is of a different order to the
miracles of pirs, I suggest that belief in the latter has influenced the spirit
in which migration has been carried out. One example of this is the risk taking
involved in migration. As we have seen, potential migrants sometimes gamble away
all their land on the chance of buying a work contract for the Middle East. When
they are cheated, or the illegal migrant caught and deported before he can
recoup his expenditures, their households tend to accept the disaster as part of
the destiny which they tried to change through migration, but failed. In this
view, life is something which can be radically changed, if God wills
it.

The lives
of successful migrants are often filled with instances of risk taking. Some, for
example, have become involved in gambling, the illusory promise of instant
fortune. The life histories of older British-Sylhetis often illustrate the
connection between risk, gambling and migration. Problems with gambling were
mentioned to me by several families with male members in Britain, and the
earlier stages of migration: leaving for Calcutta, jumping ship, hiding out
illegally, and going wherever there appeared to be economic opportunity, all
involved risk. Contrary to Rodinson's conclusion that Islamic entrepreneurs tend
to shy away from potential risks, preferring investments which bring certain
gains (1974: 161), it seems that amongst Sylheti Muslims, at least, risk is an
accepted element in the quest for economic transformation. Rather than a slow
but steady process of accumulation, many prefer to gamble everything in the hope
of a miracle.

In many cases, the gamble
has paid off and the economic and social positions of the migrants have been
transformed. Not only have they acquired land, but they have built new houses,
educated their children, hired extra labour so that family members no longer
need to work in the fields, and generally become high status landowners. This
has not simply involved worldly change, but in many cases also a transformation
of religious status which, in turn, has involved a rejection of the culture of
miracles.

Migrants tend to present
themselves as more pious than other villagers. By sending their sons to
madrasas, contributing to funds for local mosques, and being freed from manual
labour to spend more time studying the Quran, many migrant families have become
highly religious. Many can now afford to perform haj, usually on their way back
from Britain, or after working in the Middle East. This is of course the
ultimate spiritual transformation: hajjis are deemed to have been purified of
worldly sin and are treated with special respect and deference. As part of their
reinvention some families have literally rewritten their histories, renaming
their lineages with Islamic titles such as Khan and Sheikh. In Talukpur, various
lineages have only been known by these prestigious titles for one or two
generations. As others comment: 'They only started to write their name like that
after he made money in London'. This use of prestigious Islamic titles by those
whose economic status has improved has been described in many Muslim groups in
South Asia (Vreede-De Stuers 1968: 3). In these cases, religious behaviour, and
outward signs such as Islamic titles, are used to indicate a change in social
position: relative religiosity becomes the explicit issue in implicit
negotiations of status and power.

Migration and Theologies
of the Self

Given these worldly
changes, it is not surprising that many successful migrants now have very
different ideas about destiny from poorer non-migrants. While the poor tend to
declare that 'Allah gave us this position, so how can we change it?', the rich
often assert that 'Allah helps those who help themselves'. Migrants and
non-migrants also express remarkably different opinions about their relationship to God. Everyone agrees that
'Allah has no partners', but poorer, non-migrant villagers argue that only those
with God-given mortaba can pray to Allah directly: ordinary mortals must use a
pir as an intermediary in their relationship to God. In the theology of many of
the richer men in Talukpur, however, Allah can be approached directly, and
wealth is the reward He gives the pious. Thus, whilst the followers of living
pirs are unable to face God directly, because in the works of one man: 'I am
nothing', migrants tend to make statements similar to this one of a return
migrant from Germany: 'If a man leads a pure life, prays, does Haj and attends
religious events, then he can pray direct to God'.

Related to these
differences, those who visit living pirs in Talukpur today are invariably poor
men and women, who have little power to control their circumstances. It is these
people who speak openly of the pir that their family follows, or who visit pirs
in times of trouble. It is the poorest villagers, too, who most often state that
they cannot approach God alone, and need an intermediary. For them, the pir is a
middleman to an unapproachable God: at times he may be treated almost like a
deity himself.[5] In Talukpur it is
not true that only the poor have pirs; but the richer men, who have taken
control of their own destinies, tend to have different beliefs about fate and
their relationship with God. Rather than a simple dichotomy between migrants and
non-migrants, then, there is a continuum: most of the younger, better educated
men of migrant families tend not to believe in living pirs. Many richer men
visit pirs in times of extreme crisis, but even then do not wear tapiz for, as
one woman explained it: 'Men don't like to wear amulets because others would see
them in the bazaar, and they'd be ashamed'. It is these men who are increasingly
opposed to the miraculous cults.

In the second part of this
paper I shall show how alongside, and partly because of the economic
transformations of Sylheti migration, there has been a shift in attitudes
towards God, and in religious behaviour. This involves a new emphasis on
scriptualism, Islamic purity, and the international community of Islam. It has
also entailed a rejection of what are now termed 'impurities', or activities
which are closer to Hindu or tantric practices than those of Sunni orthodoxy.
Alongside growing economic 'differentiation', then, has come religious
differentiation in which the richer and educated members of the village
continually seek to dismiss the religious activities of the poor as 'impure' or
'incorrect'. Pirs, however, are still important, for some families seeking to
assert their new social status have reinvented their pirs or claimed that they
themselves are descendants of a pir. The pirs of rich migrant families have thus
themselves been transformed.

The New Purity, Migration and
Religious Change

While reformism is nothing
new in the history of religion (Caplan 1987a), it is true that the direction of
change in many contemporary Islamic societies is towards a 'new traditionalism',
an increasing puritanism which seeks to reject the old, localised ways (see, for
example, Gilsenan 1982; Roy 1982). In Sylhet, modernity, if that is how we are
to describe the increasing importance of international migration and foreign
revenue in the area, has been met with increased religious fervour. Indeed,
return migrants are often the keenest to assert a traditionalism (in this case
in the form of religious orthodoxy) which, as many writers have shown, is
invariably a social construct, the product of contemporary circumstances and
continual reinterpretation of the slippery past (Bourdieu 1977; Cohen 1985;
Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). Clearly, modernity must not be confused with
secularisation (Caplan 1987a: 10).

I defined purism earlier as
stress on adab: correct religious procedure as laid down by the Quran and other
sources of Islamic law such as the Hadith and Shar'iat. It is concerned with the
'fundamentals' of the Islamic tradition, presented as enshrined in the holy
text. Such concepts of 'orthodoxy' are however highly problematic (Baldick 1989:
7). Movements aiming to purify local Islam, or what we might term Islamic
'revivalism' are not new to South Asia, but have tended to erupt periodically,
especially in the face of external threats such as British colonialism (Metcalf
1982; Roy 1982). The link of Islamic 'revivalism' to political resistance or its
rise as a reaction to political inequality has been noted in many parts of the
Muslim world (see, for example, Geertz 1968; Gellner 1981). In the Sudan, for
example, where Sufi saints, or marabouts were politically and economically
powerful, the puritanical Wahabi movement has challenged the hierarchy of the
marabouts through their rejection of mysticism and insistence on Muslim equality
(Amselle 1987). In a similar vein, as Asim Roy has argued, Islamic revivalism in
Bengal at the end of the twentieth century was a reaction against colonial
domination and heralded a rejection of traditional Bengali syncretism (Roy
1982). This argument provides a useful insight into the link between colonialism
and religious reformism. It is especially pertinent for peoples who have a long
history of contact with the West, and who today are continuing that relationship
through migration.

Islamic purism in Sylhet is
not simply the product of overseas migration, but it is linked with it. At the
most practical level, this has to do with economic change. Within migrant
villages it is predominantly the richest men (who usually have experience of
migration, or whose close kin have migrated) who are most interested in
enforcing what they define as 'orthodoxy'. This is the key to the acquisition of
status, and it is the richer families who are most able to manipulate its
definition. I suggest that this association with doctrinal purity and economic
class has always existed, and that there has always been religious heterogeneity
amongst local Muslims in Sylhet. Roy, for example, mentions the presence of a
small Ashraf elite in Bengal, descendants of the original Muslim invaders
(1982).

A
minority of wealthy and educated people probably always leaned to the
higher-status Sunni textual tradition. For the vast majority, this was out of
reach since they could not read Arabic, or afford many of the religious
activities which I describe below. Migration has meant that in some parts of
Sylhet, whole villages, or many households within them, have become relatively
prosperous. Suddenly religious activities, which have always been revered, have
become accessible. As we have already seen, families can now pay for sons to
learn Arabic, can perform haj, and so on. It is not surprising that they should
seek to differentiate their religious activities from those of the poorer,
illiterate neighbours. At the same time, far wider processes have affected the
way that Islam is viewed locally. Missionary movements such as Tablighi
Jama'at[6] and the political
parties such as Jama'at i' Islam have grown rapidly over recent decades. The
growth of mass communications, which can reach remote villages such as Talukpur,
has aided the spread of doctrinalism, and nationally the ideal of the community
of Islam has in many ways taken the place of secular Bengali nationalism (Eade
1990). Similar processes have been at work all over South Asia.

There are other links
between overseas migration and increased purism in Sylhet. Migrants to Britain
and the Middle East have moved from an Islam based around localised cults and
moulded to the culture and geography of the homelands, to an international Islam
of Muslims from many different countries and cultures. This international Islam
is one of universals: the holy texts are the only common language, and Mecca is
the only universally perceived centre (Metcalf 1982: 12). This, of course, is
not confined only to migrant communities, but involves a global spread of ideas,
and perceived homogeneity (Gilsenan 1982: 18). In this perspective, the
localised shrines of Sylheti pirs can only be perceived as peripheral.[7] In their new
locations, Bengali Muslims had now, with other Muslim groups, to construct new
communities based around the ideals of an international brotherhood of Islam and
a central body of texts.

Travel and moving into a
foreign culture may also prompt a heightened sense of 'being a Muslim'
(Eickelman and Piscatori 1990: 16). The increasing importance of this identity,
and its expression through revivalist movements is a common reaction both to
imperialism (Metcalf 1982) and to being a beleaguered minority. As Caplan notes
(1987a: 22), amongst all so-called 'fundamentalist' groups is a strong sense of
'otherness'. Thus, while not all migrants are interested in Islamic revivalism,
many have been forced to define themselves first and foremost as Muslim, and in
their religious institutions, their mosques, madrasas and festivals,
increasingly join with other Muslims to create a universalist Islam (Eade
1990).

Religious Practice in Talukpur

It would be incorrect to
present religion in Talukpur in terms of a straightforward dichotomy between
'purists' and non-purists. Amongst the majority Muslim population, there is much
shared ground. All Muslims believe in certain basics (the five pillars of faith,
the Day of Judgement, Heaven and Hell, and so on), and all attempt to follow
basic Islamic laws. [8]Religious behaviour
is thus a continuum, with the most puritanical situated at one end, and the
least at the other. This continuum tends to reflect economic levels within the
community. Those who are the most puritanical reject religious practices not
derived directly from what they define as the Tradition. As the imam of one of
the richest household's private mosque put it:

Is not all milk white? Yet
one drop of urine from a cow will ruin the whole bucket. Is it not so that one
tiny prick will burst a balloon, one hole will sink a boat? In this way, one
mistake will spoil someone's religiosity.

The purist end of the
continuum is represented by the mosque and the village madrasa - the small
Islamic college where students learn Islamic history and Quranic verse by heart.
This madrasa and its students are part of the Tablighi Jama'at movement. Every
year they organise a wa'as (preaching): an event for all local men, where
renowned mullahs (those learned in the Quran and other holy texts) come to the
village to preach and pray. The event lasts for twenty-four hours: the prayers
and words of the mullah are broadcast across the fields all night. Men who
attended told me that the sermons stressed the need for increased purity and
rejection of 'incorrect' practices. The visitors had also urged them to keep
their women in stricter purdah.

The behaviour of family
women is an immediate indicator of piety, and extremely important for families
anxious to assert their religious status. The less women are seen by outsiders,
the more 'correct' the family is seen to be. This, like many other external
signs of piety, is far easier for richer families to maintain. Seclusion costs
money. The verandahs built around houses, the rickshaws and even shrori (covered
sedan chairs) hired to carry women, the burqas, and, most importantly, the
ability to keep women within the household and not send them out to earn wages,
all demand a certain level of prosperity, which many non-migrant families do not
have. Most landless women in the village are forced to seek work outside their
own household. As they say, 'Who can bother with purdah when her belly is
empty?'.

Other
external indicators of piety are also more available to the richer families. All
of these are seen as increasing the virtue which an individual accumulates over
his or her lifetime and which is reviewed on the Day of Judgement. Such
activities include Haj, donations to the mosque or madrasa, and the giving of
generous sacrifice (korbani) at religious festivals.

Orthodox households may
also hold milads (functions in which local mullahs and madrasa students visit
for prayers and donations of shinni). These are held to mark the death
anniversary of an ancestor, or on various dates in the religious calendar[9], and can generate
religious merit for the entire household. Again, only the more prosperous
households can afford to hold a milad.

Religious virtue can also
be gained through knowledge of Islamic texts and of Arabic. For households which
can pay the costs, this can be taught to children by a resident mullah. Those
who have read the Quran are also accorded special religious status, as are those
who can write Arabic. Hajjis too, as we have seen, have a special spiritual
status. It is thus possible to invest financially in religious merit, which not
only ensures a smooth transition to Heaven, but much worldly power
too.

In many
ways purism is defined not so much by what it represents, but more by what is
opposes. The most puritanical of the village seek to banish a host of beliefs
and customs which, as they are marginalised, are increasingly associated with
the 'ignorance' of women and poor men. Examples of activities dismissed as
'ignorant' or 'incorrect' are devotion to Kwaz, the pir (or Hindu god) of water,
or to Loki, a spirit of the house.[10] The poorest
Muslim women pray and offer shinni (ritual offerings, usually food) to both Kwaz
and Loki, but women from richer households deny belief in them. Other activities
said to lead to punishment in this of the after-life include singing, use of
drums, and dancing. In the company of the most pious, those who have performed
haj, for example, such activities can barely be mentioned. All the songs which I
recorded, many of which were devotional Sufi songs, were sung in secret by women
or landless labourers, far from the ears of the household head. It is this
secrecy which most indicates the degree of division in Talukpur.

Whilst economic and social
power does not determine an individual's beliefs, the puritanical tend to be the
most powerful men of the village. It is these men who are most keen to impose
their new pieties on women and labourers who, in turn, are increasingly ashamed
of their activities. 'We'll tell you when Abba goes to the bazaar!' the women of
my household would declare, and it was only as his figure disappeared down the
path that the stories of spirits and the songs would start. Likewise, when
landless women showed me their traditional Bengali dances, the doors of their
hut had first to be bolted. Reflecting the same division certain information is
seen as directly oppositional to religiosity. Discussions about magic, the
healing powers of medicine men, and spirits, invariably had to stop when Abba
was saying his prayers, even though he was in another room.

Many of the activities
which the puritanical condemn are central to the pir cults of the poor. Since
urs involve singing, dancing and drumming, they are depicted by the religiously
respectable as shocking in the extreme. At an urs of Shah Jalal, held during my
fieldwork, a return migrant attacked a group of excited worshippers for their
dancing and drumming.[11] The assertion
that Allah can only be approached through an intermediary is extremely suspect
to purists, who argue that God can always be approached directly, so long as one
is pak (pure). In their eyes, the devotion paid to a pir may come dangerously
close to worship of him. Various other methods to gain closeness to Allah are
also extremely dubious. Ecstatic trance, possibly reached through ganja,
meditation and tantric practices are roundly condemned. As one madrasa student
put it:

Bad
pirs are those who play music for prayer. For us this is bad: we call them
pretender pirs. There's one like that I know of, who smokes ganja, drinks, and
plays drums and sings as he prays. There are two types of pir, you see. One is
good, and the other is marifot (tantric).

Significantly, purists tend
to be against miracle-making, dismissing the miracles attributed to lesser-known
pirs. As one man commented of a pir’s shrine in a predominantly landless
neighbouring village: 'No one in Talukpur believes in him. He's a poor man's
pir'. A Talukpur sharecropper, however, told me the pir was extremely powerful
and could walk on water.

Such stories are said by
the rich to be superstitious, their miracles the tricks of fakes. Asked if they
believe in local pirs and the stories told of them, return migrants, especially
from Britain, referred to them disparagingly as evidence of the stupidity of the
illiterate labourers who follow them. Since they have the power to control so
much of their own lives, they appear to have no need of such miracle-making. It
is interesting that purists also condemn gambling, the worldly path to
transformation. I suggest that it is no coincidence that they are against both
types of miracles - that of the pir and that of gambling. Theirs is now a world
of certainties, in which virtue and wealth can be gained through steady
investment, not risk and God-granted grace.

An example of the changing
attitudes of richer villagers to the cults of living pirs is given by Heron
Shah, a pir who has lost support in Talukpur. Originally, villagers told me,
many people believed in him, and would flock to his homestead for his blessing.
But in recent years, he has lost legitimacy, for the richer migrant families who
once were his followers stopped believing in his miracles. As he became more
desperate to prove his powers, he became more ridiculous. Eventually he claimed
to predict his own death, but as one woman put it: 'We all went to see, on the
day he said he would die, but nothing happened. That man didn't die. So how can
we believe in him?'. What is interesting is not that Heron Shah did not die -
for what happened could have been interpreted in many ways by believers - but
that his followers now refused to believe in his
miracles.

Economic Class and Religious
Reinvention

The creation of religious
'correctness' involves continual re-styling of religious practice. In this, what
is and is not 'proper' is defined by the most powerful. As they create religious
status through 'orthodoxy', the criteria of which they also define, the
religious activities of those without power are marginalised and presented as
opposed to what is 'correct'. Meanwhile, people continually attempt to modify
their behaviour in accordance with that of the most powerful. For example, some
of the men who had been to the Middle East but were nonetheless landless were
chary of admitting their devotion to local pirs. Religious practice not only
marks out particular groups, it also reproduces them. The powerless are
associated with unrespectable form of worship and are thus accorded even lower
status, whilst the rich reiterate their power and status through their
participation and knowledge of a system of beliefs which is of great
prestige.

Lionel Caplan has suggested
that to understand religious behaviour we must focus upon power relations
between groups (Caplan 1987b). The hierarchy of religious discourses in Talukpur
must indeed be interpreted politically. I suggest that whilst some degree of
religious heterogeneity may have always existed amongst Muslims in Talukpur, as
economic polarisation has increased, so too has religious differentiation.
Rather than a united shift from the pluralism of traditional Bengal to the
monotheism of modernity (Roy 1982), there is instead continual conflict and
confusion within the village over religious activities, with the alternate views
very much related to relative degrees of secular power.

Other writers have focused
upon the link between ecstatic Sufi cults and social marginality. Michael
Gilsenan, for example, has argued that Sufi mysticism in Egypt and the Middle
East has an inherent appeal to the poor and marginal. There, scriptualism is
monopolised by the wealthier and better educated, simply because it is not
accessible to the poor, whose own charismatic cults the rich despise (1982: 86).
This is a useful insight which to an extent can be applied to Sylhet. But we
must also be cautious of creating false dichotomies between charismatic cults
and textual 'orthodoxy'. By describing them in terms of an opposition between
mysticism and purism, the flexibility of the cults is hidden, for cults
initially associated with mysticism can change within themselves. In Sylhet, the
cults of those whose economic positions have improved have been transformed into
respectable 'orthodoxy'. The pir is not inherently oppositional to purism, for
interpretations of his role are malleable. Indeed, rather than rejecting pirs,
many rich families now seek to improve their status through close association
with one. But instead of being lowly followers, subject to his holy authority,
they now claim to be his official keepers, or of his
lineage.

The Reinvention of Pirs

Earlier, I quoted a madrasa
student distinguishing between what he termed 'good' pir, and those who are
marifot - or part of an ecstatic, tantric tradition. These he condemned as
sinful. The student was part of the Tablighi movement, and told me that he did
indeed have a pir, based in Sylhet town. This man was also mentioned by other
villagers as their pir. He is presented by them as a stern proponent of
doctrinal Islam, and his followers in Sylhet publish a regular newsletter,
urging people to take up more pure ways. When I asked what sort of person he
was, the student replied: 'Human, like us. He has much knowledge of religion,
and teaches us'.

The pir, it seems, is
appearing in a different guise. Shah Jalal is a good example of the way that
cults can be reinterpreted by groups competing for religious prestige. Although
some of the most orthodox men in the village claimed that they did not have a
living pir, all without exception told me they were followers of Shah Jalal.
Today Shah Jalal is represented by many in wholly purist terms. Those
threatening such an image are not likely to be tolerated (such as the revellers
who were attacked by an orthodox Londoni at the urs). The khadims (official
caretakers) of the shrine now stress the historical legitimacy of Shah Jalal as
a Yemeni soldier who brought Islam to Bengal. They dismiss stories about his
miracles, stressing that he was mortal, but now is close to God. Claims about
the miracles of other pirs, they also told me, were 'superstitions, which you
get in all religions'.

Similar reinterpretations
have been made for smaller pirs. A shrine in the same village as Abdul Hossain
marks the grave of a pir whose family lives locally. Again, this pir is not
associated with miracles, and certainly not with marifoti practices. Again too,
his family is rich and of high status, and would certainly not wish to be
associated with the miraculous cults of the poor. As a relative and follower of
the pir put it:

It's not a singing and
dancing urs. It's a time when my brothers invite many mullahs and madrasa
students, and they pray for others, and read the Quran. Then they sacrifice a
cow and prepare a big meal which everyone eats. Then they pray again, and
everyone goes their own way.

These cults are clearly
very different from those of the landless speakers cited earlier, at least in
the way they are presented to outsiders. All the marks of 'correct' praxis are
there: the formal prayer, sacrifice, and the presence of mullahs. If they were
once charismatic mystics no one admits it. They have been 'routinised' (Weber
1947: 334), stripped of their spiritual powers to become holy men who uphold the
social order rather than threaten it through their miracles.

But this is not the only
difference between the cults of the rich and those of the poor. Not only are the
former's pirs now presented in different terms but, most interestingly many
claim the pirs as their ancestors. Indeed, rather than pirs dying out in the
face of puritanism, in recent decades there has been an outbreak of new shrines
and revelations of pir-hood. Rather than the legitimacy of these ancestral pirs
being demonstrated through miracles, it is often revealed through the dreams of
mullahs. Such claims tend to be made by the richer, migrant families. In the
case of Abdul Hossain, a mullah employed by the family as a teacher, is said to
have received in a dream the revelation that the dead dada (paternal
grandfather) was a pir. And the woman who described her pir continues as
follows:

My
mother's lineage is a pir's lineage. Yasin Ali was the leader of the village -
he was so rich and powerful that lights shone from his place just like a palace.
And his family did so many good works that one of his line was made a pir by
Allah. But during his life people didn't realise it. After he died, a mullah
dreamt it and people then realised he was a pir, so my brother established that
mazaar.

If the
claims are accepted or at least tolerated by others, such families can identify
themselves as of pir descent, the most prestigious title possible. Not only does
this bring secular status, but also hereditary religious merit, passed down
along the line. For in contrast to Islamic ideals of total equality, the notion
of succession from the Prophet involves belief in a God-given hierarchy. As is
often pointed out, Islam is used to legitimise widely different political
arrangements (see, for example, Geertz 1968).

Another way of acquiring
special spiritual blessing and status for the lineage is through revelation that
a pir has been buried on homestead land. Since Sylhet is famous as the land of
pirs and since not all of Shah Jalal's legendary disciples’ remains have been
discovered, a great many claims are possible. Again, revelations are usually
made in the dreams of people with Islamic learning, often madrasa students given
board and lodging by a family. If a burial place is said to lie in the land of a
family, and they build a shrine in that place and mark it with special respect,
then great fortune, it is said, will fall to them. They will also become the
caretakers of the shrine, itself a holy and prestigious function. Obviously only
landowners can make such claims.

Sometimes the claim is
simply that a pir rested at a particular spot or prayed there. This too leads to
the place being marked as particularly holy and to the construction of a shrine.
Both types of shrine are continually appearing in Sylhet. An educated informant
told me that since the 1970s hundreds of new shrines dedicated to a disciple
have appeared. The claims are invariably made by the rich or the mullahs whom
they support.

Conclusion

Ernest Gellner has
suggested that Islam is in a state of constant flux between monotheism and
pluralism (1981). These modes of faith are associated with different political
systems, which, whilst apparently applying only to Middle Eastern tribal
systems, Gellner assumes to be definitively 'Muslim'. On a similar tack, Leach
(1983) has argued that religions involve radically different features over time.
In 'icons of subversion', devotees are directly inspired, and God gives charisma
independently of the existing political hierarchy. Over time, however, this
changes into an 'icon of orthodoxy', where humans are impotent before deities.
Only superior mediators, who usually have a high position on the social
hierarchy, can act as intermediaries. Here, religion upholds established
political hierarchies and God gives them legitimacy. In both arguments,
religious behaviour is holistic; it is assumed that meanings are shared and when
change occurs it is spread evenly throughout the religious
community.

The
evidence presented here admittedly covers only a very short time scale. But
Abdul Hossain and the other pirs of rich migrants indicate that rather than one
mode of faith merging gradually into another, change may also occur within
cults. Indeed, not only can different modes of faith coexist, but they can also
be represented by a single icon: pluralism, in the form of the pir, can express
the ideal of monotheism. Thus, whilst outward features of faith need not
necessarily change, they are transformed internally. They are also used and
understood by different people in different ways, as the case of Shah Jalal,
with his purist caretakers and intoxicated celebrants, illustrates.

The modes of faith are
arranged hierarchically too, for the doctrine of the most powerful is by
definition the most dominant (Caplan 1987b: 14). Combined with this, the
meanings given to each general type shift according to context. Whilst the
general message of international reformism is primarily one of the equality of
Muslims united against the pagan, non-Muslim world, in the local context it is
the language of hierarchical difference. And ironically, whilst the cult of the
mystical pir stresses spiritual hierarchy, its accessibility to followers, and
messages which link poverty with holiness, work against secular
hierarchy.

Rather than being discrete
and bounded, there are numerous cross-over points between the different modes of
faith. Both are poles of a continuum towards which different social groups tend
to gravitate. Indeed, elements at one end can be reinterpreted and used by those
clustering towards the other. This is so for the pirs who, rather than being
discarded by the rush towards reformism, have been reinvented. The pirs of the
rich have shifted from being, in Leach's terms, agents of subversion to being
those of orthodoxy. Meanwhile the poorer and less powerful villagers, while
accepting the dominant discourse and struggling to follow it, also continue to
place their faith in local charismatic intermediaries.

We have thus come full
circle. Pirs have the power to transform, to perform miracles which can change
everything. But so too does migration. The transformations of migration are,
however, of a different order. With their newly found wealth and social status
migrants and their families have been able to aim for the highest degree of
religious piety as defined by themselves. Thus, while demonstrating their
dynamism, the pir cults of the rich can also be manipulated by the powerful in
the construction of status. No longer dependent upon the pir for his miraculous
interventions (which they say they do not need), the prosperous families of
migrants reinterpret the pirs, and use them to legitimate and build their
religious prestige.

Miracles, and the granting
of holiness by God irrespective of secular hierarchy, become less important than
the hereditary ability to be closer to God than others. The religious status of
the families is transformed, but not through the miracles of the pir. Instead,
their transformation results from the migration and the economic and political
power which it has engendered. And in turn, the pirs of the self-defined purists
are also transformed: no longer crossing the boundaries of nature, they are
stripped of their charisma and become learned holy men. No longer agents of the
supernatural, these pirs of the rich are instead agents of a new doctrinalism
which, though it may unify Muslims internationally, is increasingly divisive
within Talukpur.

Source: This paper was
published in T.N. Madan (ed.) Muslim Communities of South, Culture, Society, and
Power, (Dhaka: University Press Limited), 1995, pp.145-176 and is reprinted with
permission from the author and from Manohar Publishers and distributors, New
Dehli.

[1] 'Syncretism' implies a creole
religiosity born from the mixture of 'pure' or 'orthodox' Islam with indigenous
culture. Since everywhere Islam is expressed and interpreted in different ways,
and nowhere exists in a 'pure' form, the term must be treated with suspicion.

[2] South Asian notions of and religious
transformation are further discussed by Parry (1979: 327).

[3] A similar story is told about Shah
Jalal, the great Sylheti pir. According to this, when first journeying into the
district, he crossed the rivers which lay across his path by spreading his
turban cloth on the water, and using it as a raft. Once again, spiritual power
overcame 'natural' elements.

[5] For further discussion of intermediaries
in monotheistic traditions see Gellner (1981) and Hume (1976).

[6] This north Indian movement of spiritual
renewal dates from the 1920s and exists throughout the world. Its main aim is
spiritual guidance: spreading correct religious practice amongst Muslims.

[7] There is an interesting parallel here
with Turkish migrants in Germany whose concepts of core and periphery, in both religious and secular domains, have also shifted (Mandle 1990).

[8] Shared 'basics' include the prohibition
of alcohol and pork, daily prayer, fasting, the seclusion of women and, for men, weekly attendance at the small village mosque.

[9] In much of the Muslim world, milad is
the commemoration of the Prophet's birthday. In Talukpur, however, the term is used more loosely.

[10] Loki is almost certainly a version of
the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. Mention of Kwaz is also made by Blanchet (1984) and Saiyed (1989).

[11] Another event shunned by the purists is
the annual festival of Muharram. This is of course a Shi'ite festival, marking
the martyrdom of Mohammed's grandson Hussain. Despite the fact that Bangladeshi
Muslims are predominantly Sunni, it is, however, celebrated by some groups,
though only attended by the poorest men in the village. As a woman I was not
able to go to the shrine where it was held, but the labourers and rickshaw
drivers in the nearby bazaar downed their tools for the day for the celebration.
There, I was told, they would perform dhikir (repetition of God's name), wail,
and flagellate themselves. Respectable village elders conceded the holiness of
the occasion, but said they would never attend.